RAND Europe The revision of the proposal by the Chamber of Deputies followed the usual legislative process. On 10 December 2014, the Legal Framework was approved by the Early Childhood Special Committee following a six-hour meeting that involved debates and negotiation.71 Following this, the text could be sent to the Senate for further revision. To the surprise of some, 72 on 22 December one federal deputy tabled an appeal supported by 66 parliamentarians requesting that the Legal Framework needed to be voted in plenary before being forwarded to the Senate, even after it had been approved by the committee. While finally rejected, this appeal extended the processing of the proposal in the Chamber by three months. Nonetheless, the revision within the Chamber was finalised in nine months.73 Overall, the Legal Framework proposal was reviewed quickly compared to other legislation, even though this took place towards the end of the legislative period marking the start of re-election campaigns and at the time when Brazil was hosting the World Cup (meaning that attention could have been side-tracked). According to one interviewee, Deputy Maria Aparecida Borghetti played an important role and sought to avoid delays in the process by, for example, personally talking to deputies to avoid meetings being postponed.74
3.2.
Into the Senate – approval in March 2016 following delay
In early 2015, the Legal Framework was sent to the Senate. Due to increasing opposition to Dilma’s government, every legislative proposal that counted on governmental support, including the Legal Framework, was delayed.75 Despite some setbacks, the Legal Framework was finally adopted unanimously at the Senate’s first plenary session in 2016. According to an interviewed civil servant, members of the Parliamentary Front were active in trying to secure the approval of the Legal Framework at this stage.76 Senator José Medeiros was the chair of the Parliamentary Front and had also participated in the ELP. Together with the support of former Federal Deputy Tereza Surita, areas of agreement were found with Senator Romero Jucá who led the approval session in the Senate.77 As a result of the adoption in the Senate’s plenary session, the proposal could be sent directly for presidential approval and did not need to be referred back to Chamber of Deputies as no amendments were introduced during the Senate’s revision. The president officially sanctioned the Legal Framework on 8 March 2016.78
4. Factors that enabled the adoption of the Legal Framework A number of factors and actors played an important role in the adoption of the law. Section 2 outlined the elements that paved the way for drafting the Legal Framework, while Section 3 set out steps that the legal proposal went through before being approved and turned into law. The former Executive Secretariat’s coordinator of RNPI (2013–2014) and current director of IFAN1 pointed out that the adoption of the Legal Framework was enabled by “…a conjunction of factors. The Legal Framework did not come from the Network alone, neither from the Executive Leadership Programme,
1
Instituto da Infância.
10
